Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/431

420 thing to see, in many a glorious valley and in many an old-fashioned country parish, that ground can always be had for building mansions, but never for cottages. A great lady, perhaps, who own 8 half a parish or a whole one, permits no house to be built except on the site of a former one, however populous the neighbourhood may be growing. A tradesman who has a chance to build a house on a lot among others, makes haste to buy up the other lots, or to plant out any cottages which he cannot suppress. Nobody will sell land for building, for fear of the frown of the squire or the parson. But by patient watching land is obtained, sooner or later; the tiresome and expensive forms of conveyance are all gone through, and the building may begin.

The first marking out of the plan of the dwelling on the sod is charming. Children and inexperienced persons cannot understand it, so small do the divisions look. It is like a doll's house, they say; and the only way to convince them that the thing is true, is to put half-a-dozen persons on the plot meant for the sitting-room, and show them there is room to turn about.

When the final study of the outline is gone through, to make sure that there is no fatal mistake, no crying inconvenience or blemish; and when the first sod is turned by some valued hand, there is an end for a time to the prettiness of the business. The foundations make a great mess. Ere long, however, the walls begin to rise; and one stage seems to have been reached when the spaces for the windows appear. Not many builders of family houses are so indifferent as Mr. Bay, the author of “Sandford and Merton,” who was too indolent to leave his book, and decide on the distances between the windows of his dining-room when the workmen were waiting. He ordered that the walls should be built up without regard to windows, and he would have them cut out afterwards. He never roused himself to the task: the room was unused, except as a lumber room, and was never entered 'without a light. People less eccentric take pleasure in standing at the window-places and looking abroad, to fancy how the view will appear under all changes. When the roof-tree is laid on, it is a real festival. The workmen have a bottle of wine; and the wish for many happy years under that roof-tree goes merrily round. Perhaps there are pleasanter moments still to come, during the work. From some hill-top, or from the other side of the valley, there may be an unexpected sight of smoke rising from the chimney. The workmen are melting their glue over some shavings in what is to be the fireplace; and the blue curl or pillar of smoke looks as homelike and hospitable as if there were really a fireside. Perhaps the evening sun gleams upon the windows, seen from afar, but only just put in, in fear of rain in the night. These things are pleasant; and so it is to stand at the edge of the abyss where the floor is to be, — or to step from beam to beam, trying to conceive of the room warmed and lighted, and shut in for the winter evening, — all cleanliness and comfort: and so it is to climb the ladder before the staircase is up, to study the view from the chamber windows, and satisfy one’s self once more as to the height and size of the rooms. As for the finish of all, when the house is habitable, and taxpaying day is past, and you have seen in the twilight the bedsteads coming down the hill, and have stirred up the fire, and set the kettle to boil while the beds are made up, and mustered chairs enough round the family tea-table, and lighted the lamp, and drawn down the blinds, and locked the door, and sat down to rest in your new house, and then go to bed, watching the light of the embers on ceiling and walls (for there must be a fire in the bedrooms at first) till you drop asleep, the experience is one of the most agreeable that a person of domestic tastes can enjoy.

This kind of pleasure is common, as I have said, to gentle and simple. At each stage that I have described the dwelling may be a mansion or a cottage. And it is true throughout, that the essentials of a wholesome and agreeable abode are the same through all ranks of habitations. They are plain; they are easily attainable; they are universal: and yet it is a miserable truth that tens of thousands of persons in our country are killed every year by the imperfections of the dwellings in which they live. It would be easy to show the way in which this chronic murder goes on; but we need not afflict ourselves with the thought of damp, closeness, dirt, and the disgust and disease which arise from these, if the purpose is answered as well by studying the conditions of wholesome habitation.

These universal conditions are sufficiently obvious. They are included under four heads: — Soil, Air, Light, and Water. The sovereign and the ploughman have an equal interest in these particulars of their dwelling; and if all is right under these four heads, the terms of human life lie pretty fairly and equally divided before the one and the other. They will be more equal in the possession of health and domestic comfort than they can be superior and inferior in other circumstances of outward fortune.

First comes Soil. It is a grave disadvantage to have to live upon clay. Rock, slaty soil, and gravel are good; and clay is bad. The worst effects may be palliated by extreme care in drainage; but nothing can altogether compensate for a soil which will not let water run through it and away. Every order of house, built on any kind of soil, and especially on clay, ought to be hollow and well ventilated under the living rooms. If there are cellars, those cellars ought to be as airy as any room in the house. In the case of humble dwellings which have no cellars (but I never could see why they should not), there should be a space of at least two feet left under the floor; and a ventilator back and front to each space should be inserted in the walls, — to stand open except when heavy rain or floods may render it necessary to close them. This secures the floor from damp, and from exhalations from below.

It is some years now since the conviction began to spread that the outer walls of houses ought to be double or hollow. In the regions of rough stone dwellings this was, I believe, always the practice. The oldest mountain cottages seem to be like the newest in having walls two or more feet thick — the outer and inner courses of stones